The Hawk of the Prescient ManFlew over the Kingdom of Sand,But when the moon sunk too lowHe knew that time would not slow,And child did amend what Father began.—The Oral History

There were many nights when Leto would absorb every detail of the desert into his being, but this evening he would have no such luck on his run back toward Arrakeen, as he was filled with adab—the demanding memory.

Though he often sought out specific memories to aid in his reshaping of the empire he inherited from his father, there was also a sharp fear when the memories came unbidden to Leto. Memory was an enduring pattern that could be affixed onto oneself, but the danger of the preborn lay in the absolute perfection of the ancestors' memories within the body. He could remain within these memories and leave the empire to rot. Such a temptation to lose oneself would mean death, and Leto still had much work to accomplish before he would be allowed to die.

If I were to have been born in a yurt today, would I be soothed of this melancholy? thought Leto II. Gurney would have. Leto had to catch himself.

Gurney Halleck would have chastised Paul Atreides—Muad'Dib—Leto's father. The boy emperor knew the danger his aunt succumbed to, but he often found himself gravitating toward the voice of his father, though he would not dare allow his voice to assume control. Today, he did not know how long ago his father had died at the hands of a priest who had once extolled the name of Muad'Dib while ignoring the true meaning of his icons words. Tomorrow he would recall that it been nearly five years. Leto did not have time to sigh as he ran back home, toward Ghanima.

Sometimes the run across the desert repressed the foreverness of Time that conscripted him, a paradox that allowed Leto to appreciate his own grand-moteness and the ever-present Now. He longed to find himself lost within the currents rather than at the forefront of Time.

Mood? I'm all the men and women who make up my past. Love-making? I've seen more than Idaho! Although Leto allowed himself a dry chuckle as he remembered Gurney's talk with Paul about mood, he was suddenly struck by a thought about Duncan Idaho: Could a Duncan Idaho ever find a life of his own or would he forever trap himself in his loyalty to the Atreides mystique?

Idaho and Atreides loyalty; it was a curious thought that Leto would have to pursue once back in Arrakeen.

It was not often that Leto could find humor in his remembering of his father, so he treasured those memories of a man trapped by Fate, by prescience. Leto had come to understand his father completely during his first prescient vision of the necessities of the Golden Path, a future that would lead humanity as a whole out of the death-desire, though much death would be had during Kralizec—the Typhoon Struggle—born out of death yet with neither beginning nor end, an is made real by a true evolution of the species. It was a future which presented its own kind of trap to a being such as Leto or Muad'Dib.

However, the first emotion Leto experienced towards his father was of hate and disgust, but that was due to the nature of his awakening while still in the womb. It was a memory he had put out of his mind but had come resurging back as he ran past Shuloch, the old sietch of the Jacurutu.

He was cradling an infant in arms that were not his own, feeling as though he was holding himself. In a husky, female voice he tried to soothe the young child:

"Be still, little Leto. Our Usul will return to us soon."

It was not his voice, and yet he thought that he could be this Fremen mother. She sang to her baby:

Be still, my love, for the desert wind has come. Watch and listen to its howling. You shall survive the Storm of Sands. Reach out to your Ruh-Spirit And we shall greet your gaze With the water of the tribe.

The words moved him and became insinuated in his developing mind as he realized that he was his mother, Chani, singing to her firstborn son, a son long dead. Though he could replay it perfectly in his mind, it was a song she had only sung once to her child, in part because of a curious fear that her Usul had somehow placed those words in her mind. It was halting and unrhythmic, like the walking one makes across the desert to delay the coming of Shai-Hulud, the Old Man of the Desert. She was singing to his brother, killed by Sardaukar not long before Paul took control of Arrakis and became Emperor. During this awakening, Leto was caught by alternating memories that seemed to prove in his young mind that his father had allowed terrible things to occur.

Life and death became intermingled as he became inundated with the memories and violence of his ancestors. Muad'Dib is like all the rest, he had thought. As he grew in consciousness in the womb, this memory of his mother haunted him, as it appeared like a dim light against the dark Atreides and Fremen histories, like a blinking glowglobe whose illumination in sietch brought both warmth and danger.

And yet, when Leto was born, he allowed his father the use of his eyes so that Scytale's blade and voice could be stilled.

And now, Leto was like the waif at Shuloch, except he did more than just imitate the motions of his father, though many people would perceive it as merely the extension of Muad'Dib's divine will.

I have become a repository for all words and meanings, but that experience of awakening, that preborn difference, can never truly be distilled and translated into a language understood by anyone but the preborn, thought Leto. He understood the vast languages at work on Dune, that the Golden Path demanded his becoming the ultimate embodiment of the hidden meanings and substance of words. Leto often wondered if anyone other than he and Ghani could understand them all.

His mind beginning to tire, Leto wondered why his first memory of this life came to him. Mentat computation failed him here, a surprise amongst an Ocean of Knowns.

The Fremen-Within did not usually cry out against him during these desert runs, which soothed them, as Leto knew they would, but thoughts of his Golden Path brought out their voices within his mind. Leto was destroying the desert—their home—in the name of Fremen necessity. "Why?" "What gives you the right?" "Liet would not have destroyed us so!" Finally, Harum's booming voice quelled their fear and anger.

Why am I so tired? thought Leto. The Golden Path, Leto's enforced Tranquility, though few would understand it, would define Leto and place him in a pantheon he never desired.

Once more his thoughts went to Gurney Halleck, whose inkvine scar was a dangerous reminder of Harkonnen cruelty, and his renowned baliset skills. Leto longed to be able to play the baliset as well as this troubadour-warrior. There were many a time when he broke a string or even the instrument itself; the sandtrout skin did not always agree with his moods and often prevented the most delicate of gestures. If he did not feel overwhelmed by his memories when he returned home, he would play Ghani a song, a song Paul once pretended to not have overheard before the move to Arrakis:

This reminded him of simpler times, when Muad'Dib's jihad had not yet ravaged the Imperium and his religion had not yet created greedy Fremen. Leto allowed himself this joy, knowing that without joy or surprise he would change and become a mirror of those ancestors whom denied themselves and became beasts that sought out death. Ever since his imprisonment at Shuloch and the taking on of the sandtrout skin, Leto feared that he would no longer feel the breath of life. I risk my sanity in this existence I now strive to achieve. There is no doubt Father risked his grasp on this reality he set in motion with his vision, now mine to carry through. One day I, too, will fall and all that will remain is the dust scattered by the Secher Nbiw—my Golden Path.

The hour had grown late with dawn approaching, and Leto was exhausted by the memory of his birth. Harq al-Ada will attempt to hold back anger when I return. He doesn't like it when I worry his wife. I must not let Ghani worry any longer. Leto hurried back home to his sister.

IDK, I'm going to print this out (and all of them, of course)and read on a page, kicked back in the BigChair ... theremay be something horribly wrong with it (I kinda doubtit, but I've never been the kind of deeply analytical reader on the first go-round as some are - I read things the firsttime for pleasure & overview, and read again if I think morethought and contemplation is warranted ... so the things I'veread more than once or ten (or twenty) times is revealing -Frank's Dune (and Messiah, I've read that moretimes than the King James Bible), Shelby Foote's CivilWar books, Pierson's High-Voltage Distribution Principlesand Practices, Sylvia Plath's poetry, &etc)

it may be a little early (and unethical), but there's a littlemonkey on my shoulder chanting : winna-winna, chicken-dinna ....

................ I exist only to amuse myself ................

I personally feel that this message board, Jacurutu, is full of hateful folks who don't know how to fully interact with people. ~ "Spice Grandson" (Bryon Merrit) 08 June 2008

yeah I agree, it's really a fitting homage to Frank, and still a work of its own.Well done whoever, first for writing a good piece, and second for giving me that little nudge I needed to start reading the others.

a few years ago, way before the iPad, somebody had an e-book reader outthat was really cool - kinda rounded and the plastic looked like polished wood,and the interface was nice - had a touch screen and an animated graphicof pages turning when you stroked it ... still sucked Cartman's Balls, tho -who am I, Spock? I'll take my literature with ink & paper, please ...

................ I exist only to amuse myself ................

I personally feel that this message board, Jacurutu, is full of hateful folks who don't know how to fully interact with people. ~ "Spice Grandson" (Bryon Merrit) 08 June 2008

This was just lovely! Great stuff, whoever the heck wrote it. It captures Leto's sadness quite nicely.

I loved the bit about wondering whether Idaho could *ever* start a life of his own, separate from the Atreides. It sort of hints at what might be the real reason behind Leto's repeated Idaho gholas. And maybe that's not what Frank intended, BUT in this case such conjecture is welcome because the writing is so well-done.

Though thought to be a myth, Shuloch is a real place. It is also where Leto acquires the sandtrout skin. I think Leto also claimed, to get the Cast Out working for him, that he would make his home at Shuloch.

You are right I think about the "...old sietch of the Jacurutu." I was thinking Cast Out=Jacurutu and so substituted it. But Jacurutu was a sietch not a people (though I suppose that could be argued). It should probably have been "...old sietch of the Iduali, the Cast Out."

Dang! I thought I had already commented on yours. Well done Tleszer, you green tushie thang. Excellant job and I'm sorry I didn't say something sooner. I am looking forward to reading what the judges say about this one and I sincerely hope that you will enter the next contest as well.

The blue man gets a kiss. SandRider can give you the cookies.

What fear is there in the night? Nothing, but that which is in our own imaginations.

Thanks for the kind words everyone. In the Contest Winners thread AToE mentioned that he thought that I could do Daniel and Marty justice. I like a challenge, but even that seems incredibly daunting. Having just finished re-reading Chapterhouse again, I realize that just about anything pertaining to those two would be speculation and that it would be very easy to mess it up.

The highest praise I can think to give this is that it didn't read as fan-fic, I really felt like it was Leto speaking. I felt like I was back in the narrative the way Frank pulled us in. Excellent work!

This one was just great. Perfect, no, it had weaker and stronger moments, but the weaker moments never once knocked me out of the moment, and the strong were much more common than the weak. Some of the ridiculous word usage (best example is probably grand-moteness) were just so ridiculous that they were perfect, they were exactly the kind of weirdo terms that FH used all the time. This, and some of the rambling confusing semi-nonsense (which may or may not be actual nonsense or actually deep) really created the illusion that I was reading something FH had written. FH's eccentric writing was a big part of what made him unique, and this I thought aped his work pretty well.

The idea of him being unable to play the baliset because of his strength is very touching, though the general idea isn't unique (super-heroes who cannot do certain things because of their powers and as such are saddened by their inhumanity is a pretty common thing, but in this case the use was extremely well done and was perectly fit to express what Leto was sacrificing). As a musician I think I was moved by that more than a non-musician would be, but I don't think anyone would be un-moved by it.

AToE, what were some of the weaker moments? Semi-nonsense? I like semi-nonsense! I assume you mean the part where I talk about "languages" and what Leto and Ghanima had referred to as their preborn difference.

I initially had another sentence or two concerning these languages (by language I meant the voice/power of the Imperium, Fremen, Bene Gesserit control, Dune itself) but it didn't seem to flow as well as I liked. I took some inspiration from a paper I wrote in college looking at how these "voices" interacted and shaped Paul as a messiah-figure in the first novel. I also wanted something to describe the preborn as something otherworldly but also completely understandable. May not have worked, but that is what I intended at least.

Tleszer wrote:AToE, what were some of the weaker moments? Semi-nonsense? I like semi-nonsense! I assume you mean the part where I talk about "languages" and what Leto and Ghanima had referred to as their preborn difference.

I initially had another sentence or two concerning these languages (by language I meant the voice/power of the Imperium, Fremen, Bene Gesserit control, Dune itself) but it didn't seem to flow as well as I liked. I took some inspiration from a paper I wrote in college looking at how these "voices" interacted and shaped Paul as a messiah-figure in the first novel. I also wanted something to describe the preborn as something otherworldly but also completely understandable. May not have worked, but that is what I intended at least.

For weaker points you'll have to give me time for another read through!

Here's some of the semi-nonsense I'm talking about that sounds just like FH:

Sometimes the run across the desert repressed the foreverness of Time that conscripted him, a paradox that allowed Leto to appreciate his own grand-moteness and the ever-present Now. He longed to find himself lost within the currents rather than at the forefront of Time.

It's not so much that it doesn't make sense, it's more that it just barely makes sense! It makes you stop and re-read it immediately after the first pass, but in a good way, not an annoying way. It's like a fairly easy riddle.